


Generation Freak

by Lauren_is_a_moron



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_is_a_moron/pseuds/Lauren_is_a_moron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Generation Dead is what they called it. Young people called it ‘The Teen plague’ because that’s what it was.  Later it had a scientific name: Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome. Three years ago there was no cure, you just died. But as the years go on, the virus starts to last longer during incubation; it gave kids a chance. A bloody nose and hacking cough a tell-tale sign that they had it.</p><p>Phil Lester starts to display the symptoms after attempting to knock the shit out of a nerdy kid, and before he knows it he’s being diagnosed with with the so-called teen plague and apparently dying. Just his luck.</p><p>His parents send him to the only lifeline they have: Gencare. A facility built to cure the virus bestowed inside him. But when Phil arrives at the facility, he comes to realize that not only are Gencare curing young people, they are changing and modifying them using ground-breaking medical and scientific research.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Generation Freak

**Author's Note:**

> First published on tumblr, hope you enjoy :)

 

He was doing it again.

Phil couldn’t help grinning, despite feeling really shitty. His nose was stuffy and his hacking cough was getting worse. But nothing could be better than the wide and frightened eyes of no other than year eight loser and social reject, Kellin Tate as the boy stared at him with what could only be described as pure terror in his eyes. They were standing in the lunchroom, the two of them in a sort-of stand-off- Phil Lester standing, his bruised and battered fists clenched while Kellin clutched his folder in front of his face, as it stop the inevitable beatings which would come. The two were surrounded by the entire student body, all silent as they waited for Phil Lester to flip out. “I said, what did you just say?” Phil screwed his face up in annoyance and suddenly sneezed into his hands. His mucus was speckled red, and he groaned out loud. “You alright, Phil?” someone shouted. Phil recognised Ella Quinn’s voice and supressed a rotten retort. Okay, so maybe that bitch had been right. He didn’t look at Ella though. Instead, he focused his icy blue eyes on Kellin. “What the  _fuck_  did you just say?” Phil’s teeth were gritted, and his voice was choked up with fever. The boy- Kellin- shook his head. “I didn’t say anything!! He tried to shout, but his voice was a manly squeak, which made Phil feel slightly better.

“Phil. Sit down.” Ella’s voice came again, but Phil intentionally ignored her. He didn’t want to believe it. He refused to, but it was obvious what was happening to him. Fury started to build up inside him and he lunged forwards with a growl, grabbing Kellin and pushing the boy over and purposely kneeling hard on the boys struggling legs. “Got anything else to say, smartass?” his breath was rancid over Kellin’s face and he almost apologised for smelling so fucking bad. Kellin’s expression was screwed up in pain, his green eyes wider than a fucking football pitch. “N- no!” the boy squealed. “Pl-please get off me!” But Phil didn’t move. Not because he was enjoying inflicting pain. Well, he did a bit, but his legs were tired and cramp was building up beneath his knees, momentarily paralyzing him. Instead, he just smiled a shark-grin at the loser and leaned forward so his breath was tickling Kellin’s face. The lunchroom was silent, and even Ella has shut up.

“I’d rather  _die_  than become one of you.” Phil hissed very quietly, and then spat in the boy’s face, trying to ignore the fact that even his spittle was streaked scarlet. Phil wiped his streaming nose with a shaky hand and stood up, accidently stepping on the freak’s hand. Kellin let out a cry of pain and Phil just smiled.

 _One of you._ Phil thought; a snivelling little smartass with an immaculate Distinction star folder.   _You’re the ones who deserve to die!_

His triumphant smile however, seemed to disappear, once his lazy blue eyes lay eyes on the school headmaster, who stood in the doorway. Mr Conway the school’s head teacher had done this a thousand times, and maybe even a million with Phil himself. But Phil knew what this meant. He felt like turning and making a run for it, but his legs were too tired and his fucking nose wouldn’t stop running. Phil let out a watery laugh and wiped his snotty nose with the sleeve of his blazer and gave his best defiant grin at Mr Conway.

“Well..” Phil’s voice was shaking, despite his desperation to look and act cool. But how could he possibly look cool? He stood trying to smile, his blue eyes watering, his nose streaming and his chest feeling as if a tonne of weights were being pressed down. He wore his best school shirt, which happened to have a blood stain from some poor fucker’s nose when Phil had beat the living shit  out of him last week. His collar was ripped and his tie hung loosely without a care in the world. His blazer seemed to be the only thing which wasn’t stained or scruffy. As for his hair, Phil had dyed black hair which hung greasy and brushed in his left eye.

Phil folded his arms and tried to smile and it took him a few times to speak after hacking up a cough four times in a row. By the time he had finished, his classmates looked almost sympathetic.

“What the fuck do you want?” Phil growled at the teacher, but his vision was starting to blur and his lungs screamed, obviously wanting to hack up his lung. The room started to spin, and he lifted a sweaty palm to his nose, which was still streaming. But it wasn’t mucus this time; this time his fingers were soaked scarlet. The shock of it made his stomach roll and the rest of the student body watched as a look crossed across Phil Lester’s face as he stumbled, trying to regain his footing: Fear. Phil tried to speak, but his tongue was too big for his mouth and he felt if he did open his mouth, he would choke up his organs. He felt his legs weaken and he slumped onto the marble floor of the cafeteria. He heard mumbles which sounded like the head teacher calling an ambulance. “Stay back!” Mr Conway was shooing the other kids, but how could they  _not_  watch? This hadn’t happened in months. Not since Claire Marrow. Phil curled into the foetal position, and lay still. He didn’t lose consciousness, he just lay there. And he swore just before he closed his eyes, just to rest them, Kellin fucking Tate was grinning at him. He knew he hadn’t heard things. Kellin had been boasting that he was going to be next, the next kid to succumb to Generation Dead.

And as much as Phil hated the boy, and really, really wanted to cave his head in right now, Kellin had been right.

-

Generation Dead – that was the name for it. Later it was known as Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome; at least that was the scientific name for it. Everyone had their own name for it; the parents called it Hell, the politicians and world leaders called it a Youth Catastrophe, and actual teens called it The Youth Plague.

Nobody knew why it just affected young people. It started in mid-2016, three years ago. Teenagers started getting sick; the common cold, a hacking cough and headache. They were the symptoms. Nobody thought much of it, except that a new strain was going around which only seemed to leech onto the bodies of young people; but then kids started dropping dead after a coughing fit, or having a nose-bleed. Then the questions started with scared parents wanting answers. Melanie Hall was the first girl to succumb to Generation Dead, and survive. Her name became well known and she was suddenly everywhere- going from a rebellious teenager where there had been footage of her kicking and screaming as she was roughly dragged away. She was coughing too; and her screams were weak and feeble as she was shoved into a black SUV. That was the last time anyone had seen of Melanie Hall. Until two years later when the most beautiful girl had stepped up to speak at the “Generation Dead Conference,” a meeting with world leaders to discuss the catastrophic number of deaths that year and what exactly would be done about it.

Melanie had changed, nobody could argue with that. Everything had changed about her. When she was sixteen, she had corkscrew chocolate brown curls which hung in her face, unwashed and greasy. Her face had been pale, her skin a pale green. But when the young girl had stepped up to speak, it was like the nation recognised one of the first kids to be gripped by the so-called teen-plague. Melanie had smiled with sparkling white teeth at the cameras. “My name is Melanie Hall.” She introduced herself, and her smile had widened as the crowd of politicians and journalists had exploded with questions. Melanie wore a pristine white dress and matching heels. “Two years ago I contracted what is known as Generation Dead.” She announced, and then spread her arms out. “Now look at me.” And they did. The whole world watched as Melanie Hall did a 360. She was flawless. Literally. Her skin was pastel white and her hair a silky blonde which fell down her back in a river of curls. Melanie had said nothing then, stepping off stage, and walking out. Even her steps were beautiful; she floated instead of walked. The twenty first centuries’ very own modern angel.

Of course people had questioned, and they got answers. Melanie’s transformation was the work of Gencare. A brand new facility building with one slogan: “Fixing the leaders of tomorrow.” This was promising. After Melanie had come out, parents had started to send their kids to the facility. It was well known that if you get sent to Gencare, you either come back looking like a Kardashian, or you didn’t come back at all.

Nobody knew how it all started. A faulty gene or just bad luck? When the nation’s kids started dropping like flies, there was mass panic, and all health officials and scientists could do was, for the first few years, give dying kids a comfortable place to- well, die. At the start of year eight, that’s when it hit. With no warning, no explanation.  Generation Dead was a death sentence in that first year. Phil remembered turning up to Mrs Mason’s History class- only to be one of eight students out of twenty four, who had actually showed. His first real up-close experience to it was weeks after the disease had hit the headlines. Chloe Clark, a girl he had sat near in Maths, had been in the middle of explaining a trigonometry sum. She just…stopped. Her mouth froze mid-speech, and her nose had begun to gush scarlet. Except unlike these days, she hadn’t screamed and slapped a shaky hand to her mouth. She hadn’t done anything. Chloe had simply let out a soft breath which had nowhere near enough strength to blow her sunshine coloured hair out of her face.

And then with no warning, Chloe had face-planted her desk, blood still leaking out of her nose and mouth, her ears. Phil hadn’t of been one of those kids who had ran out screaming. Instead he stayed frozen in his seat, his pencil still angled between his fingers. He had watched wordlessly as the baffled maths teacher had rushed to Chloe’s aid and gently turned her head, so her face was no longer pressed against the harsh wood of her desk.

He didn’t have to say anything, because Phil had already known. Chloe’s friends were teetering at the door, screaming and crying. “Is she dead? Is she dead? Sir? Sir!” but the maths teacher didn’t have to pronounce Chloe Benson dead, because her desk was swimming with scarlet; her maths book stained a harsh dark red.

Chloe had been one of thousands of teens to die. But it wasn’t always death. The youth-orientated disease seemed to loosen its grip on its victims as the year went on- instead deciding to give contractors a variety of warnings to announce that  _Yes, hello! I’m inside you!_

Suddenly the youth disease had a name: Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome. Or NJDS for short. It had no clear cure, except what Gencare offered. A chance at life. And as frightened parents sent their ‘sick’ kids to the facility, it grew in popularity, and suddenly it was protocol to send your kids to Gencare if they displayed any of these symptoms:

  * Memory loss
  * Sudden violent outburst
  * Bleeding from the nose/ears or mouth
  * Vomiting and Nausea.
  * A hacking cough



 

Gencare had sent leaflets to anyone with kids over the age of thirteen. Phil remembered finding a bright yellow leaflet in his mother’s purse, when he’d been rooting through it for money for booze. He had pulled it out of the little plastic wallet where she kept it with photos of him when he was younger. The leaflet had been creased and was ripped slightly at the edges, but it was clear what it was saying.

**DO YOU HAVE A CHILD THAT DISPLAYS ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS?**

**CALL 0899 111 TO BOOK AN APPOINMENT WITH GENCARE, OR VISIT YOUR LOCAL DOCTOR.**

**YOU COULD SAVE YOUR CHILD’S LIFE.**

Underneath the bold, was a picture of a smiling Melanie Hall. Her face was everywhere.  On every skincare advert, weight loss campaigning video- even children’s TV. Her message was simple to the parents of troubled youth: Send them to Gencare, and they’ll come out like me. Alive.

When he had finished reading the leaflet Phil had folded it back up and slipped it back into his mother’s purse, before bending over and throwing up all over the kitchen floor.

-

“A correction facility?” Phil’s words were slurred with the sedatives the doctors had given him, and every word took five minutes to pronounce on his tongue. His mind was hazy, but he vaguely remembered a girl. Claire Marrow. Her name popped into his mind suddenly. And before Claire there was Chris Kendall, and before him, Caspar Lee. Their names were nothing to him. But when he really dug through the sedative which was slowing his brain down, he grasped for flitting images which flashed in his mind- blurred but decipherable.

Claire Marrow. She was a quiet girl with long dirty blonde hair she braided ontop of her head. She wasn’t a bully or a bitch. She was just a girl who he sometimes passed in the hallways. She wasn’t well known until the day she collapsed out of the blue on the corridors. It was a hot day, and maybe it was because of the heat. But Claire had been coughing and sniffing all the way through classes that day. So much that Phil had several overwhelming urges to turn around and tell the stupid bitch to blow her fucking nose.

But it was when Claire Marrow, buried underneath at least ten text books, fell to her knees and then face-planted the floor, when people started to care and actually acknowledge her existence. Of course the popular kids and anyone who was near her, had rushed to Claire’s aid as the quiet girl collapsed. Phil had watched with his cronies;  watched as Claire was peeled off the floor, still unconscious, by emergency services. He remembered her face; sickly white, trails of crusty scarlet running down her face. Phil remembered making a face, and laughing at something his cronies had said. “ _Well, at least she stopped coughing.”_ A friend he couldn’t be bothered remembering the name of had said. And Phil had laughed. But it was a scary sight; a kid from your school getting the Teen Plague. That was four months ago, and Claire had apparently been sent off to be ‘fixed.’ Rumours had been going around; Claire had been depressed, Claire had been failing her classes, Claire was pregnant. But nothing was close to the real thing. Claire had been like Phil. She didn’t want to graduate or go to university. She wanted to travel the world. She wanted to live her life the way she wanted.

After Claire, it was like the school was cursed by her collapse. The amount of kids who had died three years prior to the disease had scared students into going to extra classes and studying themselves into the ground. Everyone had that fear in their mind that they were next. Phil remembered a few weeks after the Christmas holidays. Chris Kendall, this time a loud kid, the joker of the year group, had been in the middle of taking the piss out of the classes French teacher. Her accent was obviously very fake, and he was trying to call her out on it. But Chris hadn’t  been ill. There was no cough or streaming nose. His nose just started bleeding out of the blue. “Mate?” Stephan Evans had stopped laughing and took a few steps back away from Chris like it was contagious. Chris had slapped a hand to his nose and frowned in confusion at his hands, which were streaked red. “It’s just a nosebleed!” he had laughed, but his voice was shaky. Halfway through Mrs Lemaire’s reading of “The Little Prince” Chris had been called to the office. Phil remembered the boy packing his stuff up and telling his friends he’d be back. No,  _promising_ them he would be back.

But he never returned for that class, or the next. Chris Kendall completely disappeared, and everybody, despite denying it, knew where he had gone.

“Phil, it’s just until you get better.” Phil’s mother stroked her son’s sweaty forehead and planted a kiss. Phil pulled away from his mother with a look of disgust.

The hospital room was suddenly  freezing cold, and Phil wanted to argue. He didn’t want to disappear like Claire or Chris. He wanted to scream at his mother, who sat at his bedside trying to look strong, with a smile which was faker than the fur lining her jacket. “What the hell mum? I don’t want to go to some shitty correction facility!” Phil had croaked, and his mouth had felt like sandpaper, his tongue a salty scorching desert. But it was already decided.  Mr Conway had come to visit, and he had found it hard to process what the head teacher was saying, while his parents nodded and smiled solemnly. “Phil, you have been….difficult this past few years.” The teacher had cleared his throat when Phil had told him to fuck himself. But Phil’s dad had jumped in. “Phil, you can’t keep going on like this,” his father had said sternly. “You’re going to kill yourself, and we have no choice but to send you to this….place” His dad had tried to smile and look reassuring, but he clearly had no idea what to do. Phil didn’t even think he knew the name of the place he was going.

Kill myself?! Phil thought, with a snort. Who said anything about him killing himself?!

“You’ll be with others who are like you,” and Phil had scoffed at that. “ _Like me?”_ he had spat, and his parents and the head teacher had exchanged glances. It was the Doctor who had spoken up. Holding a clipboard with Phil’s vitals. Phil wondered bitterly if his parents had wanted this for a long time.

“Phil, you’ve been diagnosed with Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome,” Doctor Woods, a man he had really taking a disliking for, had pressed his hips into a grim line,  slamming the diagnosis on him like it was nothing. Well, it was something. Claire had it, Chris and Caspar had it. And now…he had it. “It means..you are quite literally  _failing_  inside,” the Doctor tried to explain softly, but how could you explain to someone that their body was failing? “The nosebleed was the first warning that your body is giving up.” He said, and Phil tried not to remember Claire, Chris, Caspar and then  _his_  body physically bleeding out because it was quite literally tired. It didn’t want to go on anymore. Phil wanted to laugh hysterically at the irony.

“Do you remember Claire Marrow?” His mother said softly, and she sounded like she was trying extremely hard not to cry.

An image of Claire resurfaced in his mind. Her blonde hair sticky scarlet streaks across her face as she was lifted onto a stretcher.

Phil tried not to flinch. He had seen NJDS all over the news, ever since Claire, Chris, Caspar and countless other kids had disappeared, with the explanation that they had fell victim to Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome. It was just like three years ago, except kids weren’t dying, they were disappearing.  He tried not to think about the yellow leaflet he had found in his mother’s purse with its cheery images of teenagers smiling and laughing underneath the title:  **DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE NJDS?**

The room suddenly felt smaller. His parents sat by his bedside, his mother with her greying hair and forced smile, and his father, a tall spindly man with a blank expression. His arms were folded. They had decided it then, without even giving him a choice. Doctor Woods ushered his parents out after his mother had explained Gencare were picking him up in the morning and taking him straight to the facility. She had hugged him and whispered that she loved him, but he drowned it all out and refused to even look at her. His father had given him a stiff hug before walking out with Mr Conway. When he was alone, Doctor Woods had started to discuss the treatment he was going to get, but he just buried his head in his pillow and tried to drown the doctor out. He tried to drown everything out;  and the cries from other kids on the ward, the irritating tapping of the doctor’s shoes as he began to discuss Gencare’s aims and how exactly they were going to help him.

Phil was on the youth ward. It used to be the A and E, but after the amount of kids who had been sent in with the disease, it was rightly named the NJDS ward because of the masses of kids sent there every day.

He could hear a young girl, who only sounded about fourteen, yelling and crying for her mum. He wanted to jump out of bed, brush the curtain which separated them aside, and scream in her face until his throat was dry and sore. Phil wondered why the Doctor was continuing to speak. It wasn’t like he was listening. Instead he decided to try and make out the age of a boy, who was yelling abuse and crying at raised voices, which sounded like his parents. “Why me?” the boy screamed so loud Phil wanted to grab Doctor Wood’s clipboard and smash it over the boys head.

Phil tried to move his hand to swipe a strand of his dark hair out of his eyes, but found himself pulling at a silver coil of metal linked around his wrist. He scoffed, yanking on it and looking up at the doctor.

Doctor Samuel looked uncomfortable for a moment before saying, “It’s for both yours and other patient’s safety.” Phil rolled his eyes and tugged on the handcuffs again. “Sure.” He muttered.

“Okay, so Phil, the teenagers sent to Gencare are  _very_  lucky!” Doctor Wood said enthusiastically, putting way much emphasis on the word: “lucky”. Yeah, lucky, Phil thought, trying hard not to say it out loud. Sure. Doctor Wood didn’t wait for him to reply, he only continued on, while Phil tried to ignore the yells of the boy somewhere else in the ward. Behind the curtain, Phil thought. He could just swipe back the curtain, and yell at the kid to shut the fuck up. There were no windows in the ward, but Phil knew it was late evening. The cries and frightened yells of the other teens had dispersed; all except from the boy with no face, no name or no identity to Phil. All the  boy was to him right now was the barrier between Phil and a decent night’s sleep.

“Years of ground-breaking research from the world’s most brilliant scientists, along with a very new kind of treatment, will enable you to not only become healthier and better, but also subject you to an amazing-“

“Samuel.” Phil cut the Doctor off, squinting to read the man’s nametag which was clipped to the man’s light blue scrubs. Doctor Samuel Wood stopped talking and cleared his throat, clearly annoyed. He had promised the kid’s parents he would explain everything about Gencare and what Phil was going to be subjected too, but the teen had cut him off. Sitting there looking bored and aggravated. “Yes, Phil?” the doctor asked politely.

“That boy,” Phil said, or rather growled. “Can you get him to shut up?!” Phil was sitting up in bed now, and he looked like he was about to climb out. Samuel rushed forwards. “No, no you need to rest,” and then after assessing the situation in his head, the doctor shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid the kids in this ward are currently going through emotional and physical trauma- what with them, like you being diagnosed with Neurological Juvenile Degeneration-“ Phil cut him off with a frustrated hiss. “I get it, I’m fucked up!” his next words were cut off by a sudden all too familiar scream, followed by garbled gibberish which Phil couldn’t be bothered to translate. Phil clenched the paper-thin duvet which covered him and gritted his teeth.

For a second, just a flash, he remembered the bright yellow leaflet with the symptoms.

_Violent outbursts._

All the fight inside him seemed to go. “I’m tired, I want to sleep.” Phil cut off The Doctor once again, as Samuel started to lecture him once more. The Doctor stopped, and clearly wanted to say something, but his hard eyes softened as Phil curled up, pulling the paper-thin duvet over himself and burying his head into the pillows provided. Phil wanted to muffle the boy’s cries, he wanted to muffle the doctor, and he wanted to suffocate himself. It suddenly seemed too easy. All he had to do was press his nose and mouth into the soft fabric which smelt like antiseptic. All he had to do was stop breathing, and let the pillow do the rest.

“I’ll wake you up early, tomorrow, Phil.” The Doctor’s voice was drowned out by the ringing in Phil’s ears as he pressed his hands over his ears and begged,  _fucking begged_  the doctor to just leave him the fuck alone.

The sound of plastic curtain sweeping aside, followed a few minutes later by the door to the ward shutting made him flinch slightly. The nameless boy was still crying and screaming into his own pillow, and Phil felt a sense of familiarity with this kid. With all of them. The nameless kid had just been dumped by his family, like him, just been diagnosed with the teen plague, like him. Of course the fucker was screaming. Phil wondered if the boy was strapped to the bed for health and safety reasons. It sounded like he was struggling. Phil pressed his own face into his pillows, and didn’t stop breathing, or do anything stupid like  _killing himself_  because what would that accomplish? Instead he closed his eyes and refused to let the tears come. Instead he listened to the boys screams for a sense of comfort- that he wasn’t the  _only one._   

“Mum!” the boy screamed. “Mum I’m not sick!” It got to the point when Phil had to wrap his pillow around his head, which he somehow managed to do with one hand. He heard a girl tell the boy to shut the fuck up, followed by a string of threats. But the boy kept wailing. “I don’t want to die!” his voice was piercing in Phil’s ears, and Phil buried his head further and further into the duvet. “Shut up,” he whimpered, more to himself than the boy. “Shut up! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Eventually after what felt like five years, or five minutes, maybe five hours, Phil didn’t care, the nameless boy stopped wailing for his parents and praying to a god which wouldn’t come. He went silent, and Phil, who was teetering on the edge of consciousness, face pressed against the hard hospital mattress, wondered if the boy had fell asleep, or been taken away.

That was a lingering thought, his last thought, before he fell into a restless sleep. No dreams. Just the flitting images of kids in his school dropping dead, the yellow symptom leaflet and his mother’s face before she left the hospital room. And all of that was to the boy’s wail, which had attached itself to his mind, and played on a seemingly endless loop.

-

Phil awoke to the putrid smell of bacon and eggs. Normally he’d welcome it, but that morning his mouth had been parched and salty and his lips cracked and dry He managed to prise open his eyes and sit up, only to be face-to-face with a smiling nurse with hair the colour of blood. He remembered his own nose leaking scarlet, never seeming to stop. Staining his hands, shirt and tie; painting him in his own blood. Suffocating him in it.

“Mr Lester?” The nurse had a kind voice which reminded Phil of wind chimes. She smiled politely. She was holding a tray of eggs and bacon right in front of him. The smell reached him automatically, the overwhelming urge to throw up hit him, and Phil gritted his teeth, trying to shake his head without letting whatever he’d last eaten slowly climb up his throat. “Good morning, Phil! How are you feeling today?” the nurse had a nametag clipped to her scrubs like Doctor Wood. It just said “Lizzie”. Phil shrugged and sat up properly. He spotted a glass of sparkling water sitting on his bedside and reached for it with his free hand, putting it to his lips where his teeth clinked on the glass, he took a huge gulp and managed to spill it all down his hospital gown, but the cold, clean water which ran down his throat relieved him. He gulped greedily until the glass was empty, and still holding the glass between warm fingers, gasped out; “Could I have some more water?”

“Of course!” Lizzie took the glass from him and swept back the curtain. “Doctor Wood will be here to see you soon by the way!” she trilled. “A car is on its way to pick you up.” Then Lizzie was gone, and the tray of eggs and bacon was still on his bedside. He took one look at it and his stomach clenched. “Great.” Phil grumbled to himself, settling back under the covers. The ward was quiet this morning. The nameless noisy boy from last night had either gone or was asleep. Or maybe he’s fractured his vocal chords, Phil thought bitterly.

If that was even possible. After a few minutes of failed attempts to sleep, the sounds of the curtains brushing aside startled him into sitting. Doctor Samuel Wood was standing in the doorway, along with a man wearing a serious-looking suit. Phil swore he heard himself gulp. No Lizzie with his glass of water then, he thought mentally. He eyed the man with the suit and tried to put a name to the thin looking thirty-something guy with a buzz-cut. He looks like a Josh or Joshua, Phil wondered lazily as he squinted at the man’s moustache, which suddenly seemed pretty hilarious. He let out a giggle and watched his feet dance, as he jiggled his legs ontop of the duvet.

“Phil Lester.” The man cleared his throat, and Phil looked up with a dopy smile. “Mmm?” he tried to salute the mysterious man, but his hand was cuffed to the bed. Oh yeah. He’d forgotten about that.

“Phil, this is Dr. Parker.” Doctor Samuel gestured to the guy with a buzz cut. Phil grinned. “So you’re  _not_ Joshua, then?” then he laughed a shrill kind of hysterical shriek, and then caught himself. Wait, what? Phil stared dumbly at the two men. “Did you…?” his words slurred as the realization kicked in. “Did you drug me?”

The glass of water. Phil had gulped it down so quickly, he didn’t notice the slight metallic tinge to it.

Dr. Parker didn’t say anything, but Doctor Samuel smiled reassuringly. “It’s just a precaution, Phil.” The doctor tried to insist, but Phil could barely hear him. His eye-lids were heavy and his breath slow as his vision blurred. “Precaution?” he managed to spit as he felt his body start to slip back underneath the covers. He wanted to get up; he wanted to strangle the doctors who were treating him like an animal. He was losing consciousness fast. All he could do was wait for the black spots to completely invade his vision and drag him to oblivion.

Before he drifted, he managed one singular word slip through his dry lips. He had never, not since he was twelve, asked or prayed for her, but right then with the sedative sinking into his mind, numbing his limbs and shutting down his thoughts, that’s all he could say.

“Mum.”

-

He woke up, moving. The motion caused his stomach to jump the second he came to.  The smell of rich leather pressed against his nose bought him back to consciousness, and he managed to open his eyes, the minute he did, rich blinding sunlight attacked his retina’s and he lifted a hand to shade his vision. It took him a few seconds to realise he was sitting, or rather lying in the back of a range rover. His thoughts were still hazy; the memory of a hospital bed and a man in a black suit was vague in the back of his mind. Phil took in the back of the range rover, trying to blink away the sedative. There was no driver- well there was, except the driver was behind a black sliding door, which was locked. “Hello?!” Before he knew what he was doing, he was shuffling off the comfy leather seat and slamming his hands into the mini door which separated him from the driver.

It took Phil a few seconds to realize it wasn’t  _sunlight_  which had blinded him when he had woke up, instead it was a small painfully bright lamp, connected to the window via what looked like a metal suction cup.

“What’s going on?!” his voice was high, and as much as he tried not to, he sounded terrified. When he got no reply, he climbed back onto the seat and pressed his face against the black tinted glass of the window. Nothing. All he saw was darkness. “Fuck!” he slapped the glass aggressively and slumped back onto the leather seats. The motion of the car made him feel sick. His head hurt, his throat was dry and he felt a pang of hunger hit the second his hazy memories brought back the blurry image of a tray of steaming bacon and eggs.

“Hey!” he yelled after a short while of staring at the windows, waiting for anything- a flash of green as trees passed, and the familiar black concrete motorway parallel to one another; cars speeding by him at 160mph.

But there was nothing. It was like being in a train tunnel, but this time there didn’t seem to be a light at the end. Phil looked down at himself and for the first time since waking up, he realized he was dressed in a white shirt and matching pants. The outfit resembled the kind of thing a mental patient would wear, and suddenly he wanted to rip at the thin material and strip himself of clothes which officially labelled him as a freak. Phil pressed the bridges of his knuckles into his eyes and tried hard not to cry.   _Don’t cry,_ he told himself.  _If you cry, you’re a wimp._

 _“Phil?”_ he lifted his head up, frowning. Then his gaze caught the circular object above him. A speaker. “ _We’re sorry_   _for the_   _confusion, Phil,”_ a female voice sounded out of the speaker, and Phil narrowed his eyes at the damn thing.  _“You must feel incredibly disoriented, but I promise we are nearly there.”_ The women’s voice was like honey- sweet and sickly. Phil turned and looked at the window, expecting there suddenly to be light, and huge metal gates appearing seemingly out of nowhere leading him to Gencare. The facility for sick kids.

But there was nothing. Just darkness. “Where am I?” Phil asked quietly, and then with growing confidence. “Where exactly is  _this_?! And why is it dark?!” he trailed his fingers on the glass and tried to pinpoint anything. A shape or figure. But the more he looked the more his head hurt.

 _“Don’t worry Phil, the vehicle has been fitted with a special infrastructure which allows nobody to see in, and you cannot see out.”_ The women’s explanation loosened the tension in his chest slightly. “So- so we’re currently driving down a road yeah?” he screwed his face up in confusion. “What time is it?”

The women cleared her throat. “It is currently 15:45pm.” She answered, and Phil nodded, understanding. “Right,” he muttered. “Well, how long till we get there?” he started to hatch a plan to make a run for it the second the car doors opened. He eyed them with raised eyebrows. How futuristic was this damn thing?

“Fifteen minutes.” The female voice answered, more warily now, as if she’d read his mind about trying to make a run for it. Phil nodded. “Right, well…have you got any food?” his mouth suddenly watered at the thought of something warm which oozed chocolate. If he was going to run, he was going to run on a full stomach. He wasn’t sick. He didn’t feel like he was going to drop dead. His parents and head teacher were just major hypochondriacs. The speaker stayed silent for a second, before a mechanical buzz sounded, and the door which separated him from the driver slid open, a tray of small wrapped packages appearing.

Phil grabbed the tray and before he could think to look though the gap to which the food had come, it slammed shut. He stared at the small packages, picking them up one by one and frowning. “What are these?” he muttered out loud. The lumps were sealed with cling film. He started to unwrap them sceptically, eventually finding himself holding a flaky brown pastry dotted with chocolate chips. There was a fancy name for them, but he didn’t bother remembering. He was halfway through the second one, before the motion of the vehicle stopped, and he froze in chewing.

He was here….wherever  _here_  was. Phil stuffed the remaining pastries in his mouth and eyed the bottle of water which had accompanied them. Could he stuff it in his pocket?

“ _Phil, could you stay in your seat while we get orderlies to collect you?”_ The women’s voice, sounding staticky, came through the speaker, and his heart sank. “Sure.” He answered, and shuffled to the furthest side, pressing himself against the cool glass of the window. There was a sound like mechanical whirring from outside, the first actual sound he had heard except from the low hum of the car, the women on the speaker, and his own breathing. The door suddenly clicked open. Nothing fancy happened. Somebody just yanked it open, and Phil could finally, fucking  _finally_  sees light. “Out.” A man dressed in an identical suit to Doctor Parker, had ushered him out of the car and he found himself standing in a simple car-park. It definitely wasn’t what he was expecting. Phil looked around, wrapping his arms around himself as the icy mid-march air hit him, sending goose pimples prickling his arms. He stood shivering in what he had bitterly named his “Freak clothes.”

The car-park seemed to go on forever, in a stretch of battered black cement. There was nothing else, except the mid-afternoon light blue sky above him, the sun was shining brightly bang in the middle.

Phil looked around, disoriented. He was standing in a car-park, with only a few others cars parked in their designated spot. There were four, yes  _four_  different guys surrounding him, like he really was a mental patient. All four of them stared at him, twists of what looked like  _disgust_  on their faces. They all smelt identical; the same cheap aftershave and shoe-polish. Phil suddenly felt really intimidated. One of the guys stepped forward and set cold, icy eyes on Phil. “You will follow me.” He said, which sounded a lot like a demand.

Phil couldn’t help snorting. “I’m not an animal.” He said in retort, and the man to his surprise, laughed himself. “Just keep up.” And then the man was walking away, and Phil, feeling really stupid in what looked like a cricket uniform, ambled behind the four guys, who he swore had gun’s tucked into their holsters.

The men lead him across the car-park and then up to a huge metal gate bearing a pristine white sign. Phil glared at it, folding his arms.

**Gencare. Main Facility.**

**Our main focus is fixing the leaders of tomorrow.**

The man went over to a silver keypad which was built into the gate and pressed a button, before flashing his identification lanyard. The device made a satisfied  _bleep_  and a green light flashed. The gates started to open before them, and Phil took an uncertain step forwards. Beyond the gates was a huge glass building in front of a patch of grass the size of at least two football pitches. He felt two firm hands on his shoulders as he was lead through the gates, and down a spiralling red path which lead to a conservatory like reception area.

As he walked, Phil stared. He couldn’t help it. The place was filled, and I mean  _filled_  with kids. From ages 13-18. Girls and boys were sitting in the grass, laughing in groups of four. They were perfect. Perfect blondes, perfect reds, and brunettes. Kids with the colour of raven’s hair, matching his own. Cropped or to their shoulders, it didn’t matter because the kids he saw had not one single flaw.  A girl who looked around thirteen was walking across the grounds, barefoot. She like everyone was wearing Phil’s clothes. Blank white t-shirt and pants. She was holding what looked like a flower, and was picking it apart slowly, her lips moving as she pulled at bright orange petals. “Phil, I’d advise you to keep your thoughts to yourself,” one of the men said, as they walked. The girl smiled lazily at the flower in her hands and Phil wondered if she had been drugged like him.

The man’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he was about to retort. “What’s that supposed to mean?” when he caught sight of a boy his age. Pale skin and dark brown shaggy hair falling in his eyes.  The kid was sitting on his own, looking bored.  Phil couldn’t help staring. The guy resembled a magazine-model, but only looked about sixteen. After scanning the grounds lazily, the boy’s eyes seemed to rest on Phil, as he stumbled after the orderlies. The boy raised his eyebrows at him and Phil could do nothing but shrug. The boy grinned then, his eye lighting up mischievously. “Watch.” The boy mouthed.    

Phil felt like shouting back at the boy, but the man, who then introduced himself as “Dean” grabbed his arm and tugged him further down the path. “These kids are different,” Dean muttered in a low voice.

He could only nod wordlessly and stumbled down the path. Different? He snorted. They weren’t _different_. They were beautiful. The most beautiful people he ever seen in his entire life.

He saw kids with pale skin, mocha sin, skin the colour of midnight. Their eyes were gleaming and alive as they sat with groups of friends.  He caught one girl’s eyes. A pretty Asian girl who was cross-legged, sitting against a tree. A book was in her lap. When she caught his eye, she grinned and winked at him, before letting her back slip down the tree and her legs dangle in front of her. He was about to frown at her, but suddenly she was elevating a few foot from the ground. Her entire body seeming to….float. The book was still in her hands, and she dangled her legs, bare and splotched with dirt. She had clearly been kneeling in grass and dirt for a while. Phil blinked. Maybe he was still under the sedative. He stopped walking for a second, freezing on the spot, and watched the girl return to her book. She wasn’t freaking out or screaming, she was simply hanging, suspended in mid- air. The girl rolled her eyes at Phil and turned a page of her book, seemingly going back to reading.

“Don’t stare.” Dean breathed, snapping him out of it.  Phil couldn’t speak. The girl had…floated? She had floated, right? He tried to think of logical explanations. But the further he wandered into the facility, the more his brain seemed to shut up.

“That girl…” he started to say. “She- she was-“  he tried again to get his words out, but they were suddenly garbled on his tongue. Dean tugged him further down the spiralling path and Phil tried to get his head around what he just saw.

“Harriet, like most of the new patients, hasn’t developed properly yet.” Dean explained, and when Phil let out a confused noise, he sighed and pointed in front of them at a bunch of kids around his age, lounging around on the grass. They were fast-approaching the reception, with revolving glass doors and guards wearing what looked like military uniform standing in front of it.

Where the hell am I? Phil wondered, and stared at the kids, like the man had told him to. Nothing seemed strange about them. None of them were  _fucking floating._ “I don’t understand.” He frowned at the man and folded his arms. “Just keep watching.” The man sounded bored. “Trust me; you’ll want to know before we enter the facility.”

“Know what?!” Phil was hissing now, all the fear and irritation and anger he had felt since threatening snotty nosed Kellin Tate had come back to haunt him.

As annoyed and pissed as he was, he found himself grumbling to himself, staring at the five or so kids clearly having a great time on the grass. There were three boys and two girls; the boys both brunette and both, like every kid here, looking like they should be living in LA or in a boy band. Phil suddenly felt really… _unattractive_ compared to the others. He watched as one of the group, a girl with brunette hair pulled into scruffy looking pigtails, started to stand.  But when she turned to laugh at something her friend said, she made Phil’s stomach flip. He had never been attracted to girls, he knew he was gay. But _everyone_  was beautiful here. Everyone made his stomach do that flip-over thing. The girl stood up and dusted off her pants and raised her arms above her head. At first Phil thought she was stretching, but before Phil could let out a breath of irritation, turning to the man with a hissed; “Nothing’s happening?!” he watched, open-mouthed as the girl stood on her tiptoes, grinning with her arm still raised above her head. He was about to look away, when suddenly huge furled; honest to god  _wings_  were sprouting from her back. “Yes!” the girl squeaked, and the other kids were clapping and wolf whistling.

Phil felt something building in his throat; maybe it was a cry, or yell. Maybe it was a squeak. But he couldn’t seem to stop staring at the girl’s wings. They weren’t your average ‘fairy-tale’ bleached white halo wings, the girls wings were a light golden colour and looked…tatty. They had that same feathery texture about them and were tainted with the most beautiful and strange markings he had ever set his eyes on. The girl grinned at her friends in excitement as her wings stayed gracefully either side of her, rippling in the light breeze.

The girl started to jump then, not in excitement, her expression was determined and her arms were still raised above her head. It took Phil a few seconds to realize what the winged girl was trying to do.

She was trying to fly.

“C’mon Zoe!” a guy yelled. “You can do it this time, come on!” he and the rest of the kids cheered her on, but the girl, Zoe, let her arms fall to her sides and her wings shuddered when she slumped back on the grass.

Phil managed to finally tear his gaze away from the winged girl, and let the four men lead him through the automatic doors and into reception. “So, what, is this some kind of fucking angel school?!” he knew he was slightly hysterical, and maybe very fucking tired and angry and upset and just kind of really wanted to go home. He was ordered to sit on a plastic chair in reception which was insanely uncomfortable. He shuffled around, trying to piece his thoughts together. This facility was for sick kids…yep, that was right. They were meant to be dying? He had expected kids locked in cells screaming about fucking cheese. Not wandering around and hanging out with their freak friends and oh, yeah,  _sprouting fucking wings._

All these kids had Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome like him. They were supposed to be fixed, right? Not…given wings? Is that what they did to Harriet and Zoe? Phil wondered if Harriet was yet to grow wings. He shook his head violently and took a deep breath, forcing his racing heart to calm down. The reception was what he had expected- resembling a hospital with its pristine white walls and floor, actually everything was white. The orderlies had gone to collect the doctor who had been ‘assigned’ to him.

He was alone, he suddenly realized. Phil stood up for a second and walked over to the revolving doors, peering out of the glass and looking out onto the grounds where hundreds and thousands of sick kids sat in the evening sun. Curiosity got the better of him and he looked for Zoe. When he did spot her, her wings were still out which confirmed yes, it wasn’t all a mass hallucination.  “Phil?” Phil turned suddenly to meet eyes with a young man who couldn’t have looked older than thirty. The man had a huge welcoming smile plastered on his face and Phil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The man was the definition of a clique doctor; lab coat, clipboard clutched to his chest, and oh god, that stupid fucking grin which was meant to look kind, but ended up looking so damn fake, he started to resemble a serial killer with all those sparkling white teeth.

“My name is Doctor Benson.” The man’s smile seemed to get bigger if that was even possible, and he held out a hand for Phil to shake. Phil ignored the man’s hand and took a step backwards. “I want to know what’s going on.” He said, his voice breaking, and Doctor Benson’s eyes darkened slightly. “I’m sure you’re incredibly overwhelmed by what you’ve seen but I can assure you-“Phil cut the doctor off with a harsh laugh. “What I’ve seen?!” he snorted. “I thought kids came here to get better! Not to…to-“he settled on pointing out of the glass revolving doors, right at Zoe. Who was still standing there with the late sun seeming to illuminate her, as if she was a real angel. Her wings still stood gracefully either side of her and Phil could only stare in disbelief.

“Phil.” Doctor Benson cleared his throat. “I will explain everything, but I’m afraid first you’ll have to come with me. You’re…” he glanced at his watch. “Nearly ten minutes late for your assessment.”

Phil pulled back, his expression twisting, his lips curling. “Assessment?!” he spat. Then after running a hand through his hair, letting out a snort. “Get away from me. I want to call my parents.”

“Phil.” Doctor Benson seemed to lose the nice guy act for a second, and he slipped something rectangular and black from his pocket. “Assistance at reception immediately.” The man said, and Phil’s stomach twisted.

“What do you mean…assessment?” Phil didn’t want to be drugged again; he knew that’s that what was clearly on the doctor’s mind as Doctor Benson studied him, his eyes flitting. “Look, I’ll come for the…assessment.” Phil gritted his teeth, and the doctor’s expression lit up. “Great! Then if you could just follow me?”

Phil didn’t move for a second, and maybe, just maybe he wanted to turn and fucking leg it.

“Are you coming or not Mr Lester?” Doctor Benson’s hand was reaching into his pocket again, and Phil took an uncertain step forwards. “Fine.” He grumbled. “But what’s this assessment about?”

He could  _hear_  the knowing smirk in Doctor Benson’s voice. “You’ll see, Mr Lester.”

“Is this really necessary?” Phil pulled on the Velcro straps, a bad feeling start to brew in his stomach. Doctor Benson had lead him to a small room with clinical white walls and one single reclining bed, the kind of terrifying contraption you have to lie back on at the dentist. But this time, after the doctor’s had eventually coaxed Phil onto the bed, they had secured his wrists and legs, and that’s when Phil started to struggle. “What- what are you doing to do?!” he squirmed as a plastic mask was placed over his face and it felt suffocating over his mouth and nose. “No- no, I don’t want this!” he tried to scream but the mask was muffling his words. He struggled aggressively, pulling and yanking on the Velcro straps to no avail.

Doctor Benson leaned over him, and the man’s mouth was covered by a light blue surgical mask. “You have a very overactive imagination, Phil,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry; we’re just going to assess how we are going to handle your NJDS.” But the room was set up like an operating theatre- not a check-up room.

“Now Phil, I want you to count backwards from ten.” Doctor Benson pulled back his mask and smiled reassuringly before snapping it back into place. Phil’s entire body went icy cold. “What do you mean?!” his voice cracked and he started to struggle once again. A female nurse wearing a plastic apron was setting up medical instruments on a metal tray. They clinked as she picked them up with a gloved hand, and he felt like he was going to throw up. “Let me go!” he cried, pulling on the straps and shaking his head, trying to get the plastic mask off his face. Doctor Benson was tying a plastic apron around himself now. “Phil, do you want to get better?” he asked softly. And suddenly the doctor had such a sincere expression; Phil had to nod his head.

“But not like this!” he squeaked, when the doctor told him to once again count backwards from ten. “Phil, would you like me to explain what we are going to do?” the doctor’s voice was soft and gentle, and Phil stopped struggling for a second. Did he want to know? What exactly were they planning on doing?!

He nodded, breathing heavily against the plastic pressed over his face. Doctor Benson nodded. “Okay.” He slipped a glove off. “Phil,the stage of NJDS you have right now is too severe to be left untreated any longer,” the doctors words, whether he was speaking the truth or not, sent shivers down Phil’s spine. “But I feel fine?!” he argued, because, yes, he did feel fine. His nose wasn’t bleeding, he wasn’t hacking up his lungs. So he  _was_  fine.

Doctor Benson shook his head slightly. “Back at the hospital you were diagnosed with Type 2 NDJS, meaning they had to feed your brain with Neurtisories, as well as morphine.” When Phil gave him a blank look, the Doctor seemed to remember he was explaining all this to a sixteen year old kid. “Right- ah,  Neurtisories slows down the effects of the virus. Giving us the time to treat it quickly. It also sort of numbs your mind in a way, which stops the epistaxis.”

“We are simply going to start the treatment tonight, and then pick it back up tomorrow morning.” The doctor smiled again at him. “And then you’ll be free to roam the facility and rest.” Phil studied the doctor’s face, trying to spot a shred of dishonesty in Doctor Benson’s expression. “Do you not understand what I’m saying?” the man seemed almost irritated.

“We’re going to make a small incision in the base of your skull, and from there-“ a female doctor started to explain, and Phil tried to lunge off the bed, but his arms and legs were strapped down.  “What?!”

“Doctor Kelly, that’s enough.” Doctor Benson glared at the other doctor.  

“We’re going to cure you of Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome.” The doctor said simply, and then snapped his mask back over his mouth. “Now,” the doctor’s voice was a demand.  “Can you count backwards from ten?”

Phil had no choice. He  _did_  want to get better. But if they cured kids of NJDS, then what the hell was up with Zoe and the floating girl, Harriet?

“Ten…” Phil started the countdown. He tried to ignore the metal instruments clinking on the tray, or that somewhere, that Zoe girl was still trying to make her wings work. “Nine…” he tried to picture himself back at school. No, at home with his parents. They were a pain in the ass, but he loved them.

“Eight….” Did the facility turn dying kids into angels? Phil thought as he felt himself start to drift off. “Seven.” He croaked. Did they cure them and then quite literally let them fly away?

“Six.” Phil was fast-falling now. His voice was little more than a croak underneath his mask. He wondered if the nameless screaming boy was here too. Would they give him wings? Phil’s thoughts stopped and one singular thought arose.

Are they going to give  _me_  wings?

— 

The screaming boy was here.

_“Get off me! Please, somebody fucking help me!”_

_He’s here._

That was the first thing Phil thought as he managed to claw onto consciousness. His mind was still hazy from the drugs, but he managed to force himself to wake up, the boy’s screams echoing in his mind. He was imagining them, right? The boy had been at the hospital. Could he really be here? Phil felt himself start to come to and felt warm covers enveloping him. His head was pressed against something soft and comfy.

A pillow. He pressed his face against it, smiling into the material. This was so fucking comfy. He buried his head into the pillow once again and let his brain drift off once more.

_“Please!”_

The screaming-boy, Phil thought. But the boy’s voice sounded different- louder and more prominent inside his own head.

That was definitely real. Phil jumped up, eyes flying open, to realize he was no longer tied down. He wasn’t even in the theatre room anymore. Phil sluggishly lifted a hand to the base of his skull, and surely enough, a bandage had been wrapped around his head. He felt the material and shivered, grabbing the surprisingly comfy duvet and wrapping it around himself for warmth.  After shaking his head and trying to force himself properly awake, Phil climbed off the bed he had been placed in, and wandered around the room. It was small, rectangular and had glass walls. The room was dimly lit, so he could only make out the bed he had been sleeping in, and a small wooden bedside cabinet with a vase of purple flowers. Not real, he told himself as he yawned. The boy was just part of his so-called “overactive imagination” as Doctor Benson had cheerily put it.

 _“Mum! I want my mum! Let me fucking go!”_ Phil stiffened in walking around the room in a disoriented state. The boy’s voice was there again, teetering at the edge of his consciousness.

His bare feet slapped the white tiles as he walked over to the glass screen which  surrounded him. He laid a shaky hand on the cool glass and shivered. It felt nice against his feverish skin. Phil stood there kind of swaying, as his mind tried to shake off the anesthetic. There was a dull pain in his temples, but his arms and legs seemed fine. He wondered what time it was, since there was no window indicating night or day. Though when he pressed his face against the glass windows, he found himself staring at a pitch black corridor.

So, night then.

_“Let me go!”_

The sudden familiar yell of the nameless boy snapped him out of it slightly, and without thinking about what he was doing, he manage to find the door- a small bump in the glass window. There was a plastic handle labelled: “Push.”

Phil pushed on the door, expecting it not to budge. Of course it was locked. But when he pushed it a second time, it slipped open with an audible  _pshh_. He didn’t even know what he was doing. What was he planning on doing? Finding the screaming-boys room and telling him to shut up? Maybe. But the boy sounded like he was in pain.  _Get off me_. Were they curing him? And if they were- why the hell was the boy awake?!

Phil tried not to think about what exactly was being done to the screaming-boy, as he made his way down the dark corridor, using nothing but his sense of touch- trailing his hands over the walls as he walked, to lead him in the right direction. It was pitch black so he couldn’t see a thing. He wondered if there were kids in rooms which surrounded him as he walked. His bare feet smacking against the cool, marble tiles.

“ _Help! Somebody help me!”_

The yells and cries were getting louder, which meant he was getting close. Phil continued down the corridor, his breathing shallow as he tried hard not to make a sound. It was just around the corner.

Eventually he found the screaming-boy. He was in the same room he had been in last night. And finally, there was a face to the boy. Phil hid behind the door, which was open ajar, angling his neck and head so he could see through the door. He squinted as bright lights blinded him. The whole room was flooded with light making it hard to see properly. He shaded his eyes and took a small step forwards, looking closer.

A tall boy with tan skin and brown hair styled into a fringe was struggling on the reclined hospital bed. His arms and legs were strapped to the bed as Phil’s had. But there was no mask. Phil felt his chest tighten. They weren’t giving the boy anaesthetic. There were four doctors surrounding him, all wearing surgical masks.

It took Phil a few seconds to realize the boy  _wasn’t_ screaming. He was struggling yes, and crying, but when his mouth opened, nothing came out. But Phil still heard that terrified voice sinking into his mind.

 _“You bastards!”_  The boy was screaming so loud into Phil’s head, that Phil himself wanted to cry. He pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. Because this wasn’t real. He’d open his eyes, and see that the boy was screaming  _out loud_  and not  _inside his head._ But after a few deep breaths and peeking through his hands, the boy was still laid there, his mouth opening and closing in mute cries and screams, but they were clear in Phil’s mind.

He couldn’t see what they were doing to the boy, but it was  _hurting_  him. Every so often the boy would let out a silent scream, and then Phil would hear the agonized  howl in his own mind. This wasn’t happening, Phil tried to tell himself, but the boy’s scream was there again. Louder this time when the boy on the bed opened his mouth, a mute scream to the doctors, but deafening inside his own skull.

“He’s struggling.” A Doctor murmured.

Phil’s heart leapt. Doctor Benson.

“…Vocal chords…” another Doctor was in the middle of a muffled conversation, while the metal clinks of instruments making contact with bone sounded, making Phil want to throw up.

This isn’t happening, he tried to tell himself. This can’t be happening, this is a nightmare. He tried to get a good look at the other doctor, and his chest tightened when he saw a second boy lying there – and this boy was still. Almost deathly still. Phil only caught a flash of shaggy brown hair before a doctor obstructed his vision.

Phil slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling a cry when the nameless boy, still struggling and crying in his mind, managed to turn away from the doctors, and then was looking  _directly_  at Phil.  The boys head was covered with a surgical hat, and Phil knew why. He was going to throw up right now. He was going to throw up. He was going to-

“Peter James…” another doctor mumbled, but Phil wasn’t listening.

The boy was staring directly at him. Brown eyes wide and terrified, every so often shutting when the pain got too much.

“ _Help me!”_ The boy screamed in his mind. “ _Please! It- it hurts!”_

“And Daniel Howell.” The doctor was saying clearly now. “Will this work?” Phil recognised the female doctor from earlier. She sounded sceptical. “This isn’t just Grigori, Benson. This is Clerging. Are you really sure we’ll succeed this time?”

“Positive.” Doctor Benson replied, his voice muffled under his mask. “Now can you please pass me a scalpel?”

Phil could only stare in horror at the boy, and try not to cry or scream himself. The boy eventually lost interest in him, shutting his eyes because it must have been too painful.

Phil dared to look at the other boy, who was more of a corpse, lying on the metal table, covered in a thin blue sheet. There was something over the boy’s face so he couldn’t see if the boy was breathing, but the way his arms dangled off the table like dead weight made his stomach jump into his throat.

He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He let out a shaky breath and a tiny, barely audible scream ripped from his mouth. When Doctor Benson froze in picking out a scalpel, Phil gagged himself and tried not to breathe.

The screaming-boy was still struggling and screaming in his mind, despite when Phil  _looked_  at him, nothing was coming out of his mouth.  _“I want my mum!”_ the boy sobbed. “ _I don’t- I don’t want this!”_

“I think this one’s a winner.” The female doctor sounded excited, her mask obstructing her words slightly. “Check the screen. Is there brain activity in Peter James?”

“Affirmative.” Another doctor handled what looked like a flat screen TV. The bright and squiggly lines showing up on the screen meant nothing to Phil, but the doctors stared in amazement.

Phil stumbled backwards, still with his hand pressed over his mouth. He found himself running blindly back to his room and diving onto his bed, crawling under the covers and willing himself not to throw up. The images of the boy- the two boys resurfaced in his mind. There was only one voice or cry, but two bodies. Phil tried to block out the sound of the boy’s screams which had settled into his thought processes.

The voice had been inside his  _head._ Phil tried to register that. How could the boy be mute, but screaming inside  _his_  head?

Two names, he thought. Peter James and Daniel Howell. He buried his own head under the covers and froze for a second, reaching a shaky hand and pressing two fingers against the bandages wrapped around his head.

 _What had they done to him?_ Why wasn’t he in pain? He’d just had fucking brain surgery! He lay there unable to sleep. Images flitted through his mind: Harriet the floating girl, Zoe the girl with wings, and now the two boys having some kind of brain surgery- doing  _something_  to them. This wasn’t curing them of Neurological Juvenile Degeneration Syndrome. It was changing them,  _modifying them_  into something like Zoe or Harriet.

But what had they done?

 _“What..”_ The boy’s voice was in his head again, but this time he was calm. “ _What did they- what did they do to me? I can’t- I can’t speak! I can’t- I can’t scream! Oh god- help me! Somebody help me!”_

Phil could do nothing but listen to the boy’s voice rooted inside his head. This time he couldn’t block it out with a pillow crushed against his ears, because he was  _inside_  Phil’s mind. Every thought, every cry or scream, Phil heard. The boy was crying now, and Phil’s own eyes watered. He tried not to think about the mute boys terrified eyes as Doctor Benson did who knows what to him. They said he was a success, Phil thought. But then he was thinking about the other boy- the one who was lying completely still on the operating table.

What exactly had they done to the boys? Phil let that thought wander as he tried to close his eyes, but every time he did, the boy started to cry. His sobs echoed through Phil’s mind, drowning out his thoughts.

So loud. The boy’s thoughts were  _so fucking loud._

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos if you liked it and would like more :)


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